Performance improvements for index generation

src/hipscat_import/index/arguments.py

@@ -22,9 +22,22 @@ class IndexArguments(RuntimeArguments):
 
     ## Output
     include_hipscat_index: bool = True
+    """Include the hipscat spatial partition index."""
     include_order_pixel: bool = True
+    """Include partitioning columns, Norder, Dir, and Npix. You probably want to keep these!"""
+    drop_duplicates: bool = True
+    """Should we check for duplicate rows (including new indexing column),
+    and remove duplicates before writing to new index catalog?
+    If you know that your data will not have duplicates (e.g. an index over
+    a unique primary key), set to False to avoid unnecessary work."""
 
+    ## Compute parameters
     compute_partition_size: int = 1_000_000_000
+    """partition size used when creating leaf parquet files."""
+    divisions: Optional[List] = None
+    """Hints used when splitting up the rows by the new index. If you have
+    some prior knowledge about the distribution of your indexing_column, 
+    providing it here can speed up calculations dramatically."""
 
     def __post_init__(self):
         self._check_arguments()

src/hipscat_import/index/map_reduce.py

@@ -31,16 +31,44 @@ def create_index(args):
     )
 
     if args.include_order_pixel:
-        ## Take out the hive dictionary behavior.
+        ## Take out the hive dictionary behavior that turns these into int32.
         data["Norder"] = data["Norder"].astype(np.uint8)
         data["Dir"] = data["Dir"].astype(np.uint64)
         data["Npix"] = data["Npix"].astype(np.uint64)
+
+    # There are some silly dask things happening here:
+    # - Turn the existing index column into a regular column
+    # - If that had been the _hipscat_index, and we don't want it anymore, drop it
+    # - Create a new index, using our target indexing_column.
+    #   Use division hints if provided.
     data = data.reset_index()
     if not args.include_hipscat_index:
         data = data.drop(columns=[HIPSCAT_ID_COLUMN])
-    data = data.drop_duplicates()
+
+    if args.divisions is not None and len(args.divisions) > 2:
+        data = data.set_index(args.indexing_column, divisions=args.divisions)
+    else:
+        data = data.set_index(args.indexing_column)
+
+    if args.drop_duplicates:
+        # More dask things:
+        # - Repartition the whole dataset to account for limited memory in
+        #   pyarrow in the drop_duplicates implementation (
+        #   "array cannot contain more than 2147483646 bytes")
+        # - Reset the index, so the indexing_column values can be considered
+        #   when de-duping.
+        # - Drop duplicate rows
+        # - Set the index back to our indexing_column, but this time, the
+        #   values are still sorted so it's cheaper.
+        data = (
+            data.repartition(partition_size=1_000_000_000)
+            .reset_index()
+            .drop_duplicates()
+            .set_index(args.indexing_column, sorted=True)
+        )
+
+    # Now just write it out to leaf parquet files!
     data = data.repartition(partition_size=args.compute_partition_size)
-    data = data.set_index(args.indexing_column)
     result = data.to_parquet(
         path=index_dir,
         engine="pyarrow",

tests/hipscat_import/index/test_index_map_reduce.py

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ def test_create_index(
 
 @pytest.mark.dask
 def test_create_index_no_hipscat_index(small_sky_object_catalog, tmp_path):
-    """Create an index for simple object catalog"""
+    """Create an index for simple object catalog, without the _hipscat_index field."""
     args = IndexArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_object_catalog,
         indexing_column="id",
@@ -66,7 +66,8 @@ def test_create_index_no_hipscat_index(small_sky_object_catalog, tmp_path):
 
 @pytest.mark.dask
 def test_create_index_no_order_pixel(small_sky_object_catalog, tmp_path):
-    """Create an index for simple object catalog"""
+    """Create an index for simple object catalog, without the partitioning columns,
+    Norder, Dir, and Npix."""
     args = IndexArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_object_catalog,
         indexing_column="id",
@@ -91,13 +92,51 @@ def test_create_index_source(
     assert_parquet_file_index,
     tmp_path,
 ):
-    """test stuff"""
+    """Create simple index for the source table."""
+    args = IndexArguments(
+        input_catalog_path=small_sky_source_catalog,
+        indexing_column="source_id",
+        output_path=tmp_path,
+        output_artifact_name="small_sky_source_index",
+        overwrite=True,
+        progress_bar=False,
+    )
+    mr.create_index(args)
+
+    output_file = os.path.join(tmp_path, "small_sky_source_index", "index", "part.0.parquet")
+
+    expected_ids = [*range(70_000, 87_161)]
+    assert_parquet_file_index(output_file, expected_ids)
+
+    data_frame = pd.read_parquet(output_file, engine="pyarrow")
+    npt.assert_array_equal(
+        data_frame.columns,
+        ["_hipscat_index", "Norder", "Dir", "Npix"],
+    )
+    assert data_frame.index.name == "source_id"
+    assert len(data_frame) == 17161
+    assert np.logical_and(data_frame["Norder"] >= 0, data_frame["Norder"] <= 2).all()
+
+@pytest.mark.dask
+def test_create_index_with_divisions(
+    small_sky_source_catalog,
+    assert_parquet_file_index,
+    tmp_path,
+):
+    """Create an index catalog for the large(r) source catalog, passing
+    some divisions hints. This should partition the final output according to
+    the `compute_partition_size` and not the provided divisions."""
+    divisions = np.arange(start = 70_000, stop = 87_161, step = 5_000)
+    divisions = np.append(divisions, 87_161).tolist()
+
     args = IndexArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_source_catalog,
         indexing_column="source_id",
         output_path=tmp_path,
         output_artifact_name="small_sky_source_index",
         overwrite=True,
+        divisions=divisions,
+        drop_duplicates=False,
         progress_bar=False,
     )
     mr.create_index(args)
@@ -123,7 +162,8 @@ def test_create_index_source_by_object(
     assert_parquet_file_index,
     tmp_path,
 ):
-    """test stuff"""
+    """Create an index for the source table, using the source's object ID
+    as the indexing key."""
     args = IndexArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_source_catalog,
         indexing_column="object_id",
@@ -154,7 +194,7 @@ def test_create_index_extra_columns(
     assert_parquet_file_index,
     tmp_path,
 ):
-    """test stuff"""
+    """Create an index with some additional payload columns."""
     args = IndexArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_source_catalog,
         indexing_column="object_id",

tests/hipscat_import/index/test_run_index.py

@@ -114,7 +114,6 @@ def test_run_index_on_source(
 @pytest.mark.dask
 def test_run_index_on_source_object_id(
     small_sky_source_catalog,
-    dask_client, # pylint: disable=unused-argument
     tmp_path,
     assert_parquet_file_index,
 ):

tests/hipscat_import/verification/test_verification_arguments.py

@@ -67,8 +67,11 @@ def test_catalog_object(tmp_path, small_sky_object_catalog):
     assert str(args.tmp_path).startswith(tmp_path_str)
 
 
+@pytest.mark.timeout(5)
 def test_provenance_info(small_sky_object_catalog, tmp_path):
-    """Verify that provenance info includes verification-specific fields."""
+    """Verify that provenance info includes verification-specific fields.
+    NB: This is currently the last test in alpha-order, and may require additional
+    time to teardown fixtures."""
     args = VerificationArguments(
         input_catalog_path=small_sky_object_catalog,
         output_path=tmp_path,